The Innocent: A Coroner Jenny Cooper Crime Short (2 page)

She spoke quietly. ‘Jenny? Jenny, it’s Natasha.’ A pause. ‘It’s OK—’ She fell silent. Jenny listened hard to the background noises and made out a tannoy announcement: ‘
The 11.48 service to Plymouth
—’ Natasha hung up. Not a mobile phone, but an old-fashioned handset rattling into a cradle.

She’d been calling from a payphone, at a station. The foster parents’home was in Stoke Gifford, less than a mile from Bristol Parkway.

Skipping the rest of her messages, Jenny called Detective Sergeant Murray.

He answered from inside a moving squad car. ‘Jenny?’

‘I had a message from Natasha Greenslade on my voicemail. I think she might have been at Parkway.’

He didn’t answer.

‘Pete?’

‘Yeah.’ He sounded serious and distracted. ‘What did she say?’

‘She said, “Jenny, it’s Natasha,” then, “It’s OK.”’

‘That’s all?’

‘Yes. Why? What’s wrong?’

There was a pause.

‘A young female went under a train at Parkway about thirty minutes ago.’

Jenny felt her heart smash against her ribs.

‘When did she call you?’

‘About then.’

‘Right. I’ll let you know.’

Jenny stood in the middle of the corridor clutching her phone, remembering the last conversation she’d had with Natasha. It was in a conference room outside the Bristol Family Court, shortly after the order had been made for her be placed in foster care. They’d had a moment alone together before the girl’s social worker joined them. Natasha had been daunted by the prospect of going to live with a new family. Her biggest problem, Jenny had grown to understand, was that she felt deeply ashamed of her mother. Their roles had reversed: Natasha felt responsible for Karen’s drinking, promiscuity and minor criminality. And it was far easier for her to carry her burden alone and in secret, than to live with a family whose normality would only serve to highlight the chaos of her own life.

Intuiting Natasha’s troubled thoughts, Jenny had said, ‘The Bartletts are good people. They don’t judge anyone. You can talk to them about anything you like, or you can keep things private. It’s up to you. The main thing is, every day at their home will be the same as any other. You can relax there. I promise – you’ll be very happy with them.’

Natasha had nodded, then looked up at her with pale blue eyes and given a hint of a smile. ‘I wish I could have had a mum like you.’

Jenny had to swallow hard to stop her eyes filling with tears. ‘Look, here’s my number,’ she had said. She had torn a scrap of paper from her legal pad and written it down. ‘If you’ve a problem, whatever it is, you can call me and I’ll do what I can to help.’

Natasha had held the number tightly in her clenched fist, like something precious. ‘Thanks. I will.’

Jenny had been staring at the papers on her desk for more than an hour, unable to absorb a word, when Elaine emerged from her glass-walled office and made her way across the open-plan workspace towards her. She was frowning; Jenny knew it was bad news.

‘The police have recovered a body. They think it’s Natasha, but they’re not sure. Her mother is refusing to come and identify it.’

Jenny fought hard not to show her emotion, reminding herself she was a professional. They lost one or two kids every year. Sometimes more. Given their clientele, it was inevitable.

‘There’s her grandfather,’ Jenny said. ‘He’s all right. I know she’s had contact with him recently.’

Elaine gathered her cardigan tightly around herself. ‘The police would rather not involve the family if they can help it – it’s a bit of a mess, as you can imagine. They’ve asked if you would go.’

‘Me?’

‘Everyone else who’s worked with her is busy.’

‘Is this my punishment for not having her locked up?’

‘These things happen, Jenny. It can’t be helped. They’d like you there as soon as possible, if you don’t mind.’

The thought of visiting a mortuary filled Jenny with dread. The only dead body she had seen had been her grandmother’s when Jenny was twelve, and then only a glimpse of her face and the chalk-white skin of her bony hands. She arrived at the old Victorian mortuary at Frenchay Hospital and was met with the heavy smell of disinfectant and decay leaking through the door and polluting the air outside. She pressed the intercom.

‘Hello?’ a disembodied voice crackled back at her.

‘Jenny Cooper. I’m here for the identification.’

‘Come in.’

Jenny entered a gloomy tiled corridor with a vaulted ceiling. The architects had attempted to conjure the atmosphere of a church, but had created a crypt. There were no windows that Jenny could see, just a line of gurneys – there had to be at least half a dozen of them – each one holding a body wrapped in dazzling white plastic.

Jenny’s legs felt suddenly weak, as if they might fold beneath her.

A short, slight male dressed in a waist-length white coat buttoned tight across his narrow chest emerged through swing doors to her right.

‘Mrs Cooper?’

‘Yes.’

‘I’m Joe, the technician.’ He was a man of sixty but moved with the speed and lightness of a flyweight boxer. He smiled as he approached her, not kindly, Jenny felt, but with a morbid sense of mischief. ‘The police officer’s already here. Do you want to come through?’

She nodded – she could hardly refuse – and followed him along the length of the corridor to another set of doors marked ‘Refrigeration Unit’. Jenny bowed her head to avoid looking at the shrouded bodies.

‘Not family, are you?’ Joe said.

‘No,’ Jenny answered. ‘I dealt with her professionally.’

‘That’s good. You wouldn’t want family to see this.’

Jenny followed him through the door. She felt nauseous.

Detective Sergeant Pete Murray was leaning against the wall checking his text messages. With short, dyed-blond hair and a gold stud in his ear, he didn’t look like a police officer. He was Jenny’s age, perhaps a year or two younger, and, she had always assumed, gay. She suspected he’d suffered in his young life and was still trying to settle the score.

Pete looked at her, but didn’t say a word.

‘All right?’ Joe said.

Jenny nodded and watched while he opened a large refrigerator door, then slid out a drawer that moved on silent runners.

Even though the girl’s remains were wrapped in plastic, Jenny could see that they were in several parts.

‘Just the face.’ Pete broke his silence to issue the instruction.

Joe peeled back the flap covering the head and Jenny forced herself to look, digging her fingernails into the palms of her clenched hands.

The face was violently bruised and the long, black hair matted with blood, but the delicate features were Natasha’s. Even dead she was beautiful.
Too beautiful
. The words popped into Jenny’s mind unprompted. She pushed them away.

‘Yes. It’s her.’

Joe slid the drawer back into the cabinet. Jenny turned and went with Pete to the door, anxious to get away.

They walked several steps along the tiled corridor in silence, then Pete said, ‘I’ve got the mother in the car. I don’t know if you want to say anything to her.’

‘Oh. Do you think it’s a good time?’

‘Up to you.’ He gave her a look that said it would be cowardly of her to leave it all to him.

‘OK. I’ll talk to her.’ Nothing could be worse than what she had just experienced.

Karen was sitting in the front seat of the unmarked police car dressed in the black suit she always wore to court, her plaited hair tied up in a bun with artfully arranged strands framing her face. She was a pretty woman who in another life might have had a house, a job and a husband. But Jenny had read in her files that she had grown up with an alcoholic mother who had prostituted herself and probably involved Karen, too. Her father, a building labourer, had flitted in and out of their lives before disappearing altogether; until earlier this year, when he’d turned up asking to meet his granddaughter. It was a familiar pattern in dysfunctional families: damage followed by remorse. And always too late.

Pete tapped on the glass and opened the door. Karen’s make-up had been smudged by tears.

‘Hi, Karen,’ Pete said. ‘You know Mrs Cooper.’

She looked at Jenny and nodded. The memories weren’t happy ones: fraught care hearings Karen contested because she couldn’t resist the drama; Jenny always the one telling the judge she wasn’t a fit mother.

‘She made the ID,’ Pete said, leaving it to Jenny to break the news.

‘I’m sorry, Karen,’ Jenny said. ‘It was Natasha.’ She ran out of words. Nothing seemed adequate.

There was a barren moment of silence. They were all on uncharted ground. Jenny waited for Karen to break down and wail, the way she had in court each time a judge had taken Natasha from her, but she surprised her by remaining calm.

‘You know why she did this, don’t you?’ Karen said. ‘It’s because you took her away from me.’

Jenny resisted defending herself. ‘I think it’s a bit early to ask those questions. Is there anything we can do for you? I can have someone come round—’

Karen shook her head. ‘You’re the one who’s going to need counselling, Mrs Cooper. My conscience is clear.’ She nodded to Pete. ‘He said she called you from the station and you didn’t do nothing about it.’

‘Natasha left me a message. She said she was OK.’

‘Liar. She said, “
It’s
OK.” That’s what you told him.’

‘Yes, that’s right,’ Jenny corrected herself.

‘So you were lying.’

‘No—’

‘It’s a big thing to get wrong, when my daughter’s just gone under a train.’

Jenny looked to Pete for back-up, but he glanced away.

‘How did she have your number, anyway?’ Karen demanded. ‘You’re just the lawyer, not her social worker.’

Jenny stammered over her reply, realizing that she’d stepped into a trap. That must have been a question Pete had asked Karen in the car on the way over: what was Natasha doing phoning the council’s lawyer on her private phone? Kids in care dealt with their social workers.

‘I don’t know,’ Jenny heard herself say. ‘You crossed the line,’ Karen said. She jabbed an accusing finger towards her. ‘I’m going to make you pay for that.’ She pulled the car door closed and stared straight ahead.

Jenny turned to Pete for help.

He shrugged. ‘It’s a fair question.’

‘I’ve worked with Natasha for years. We both have.’

‘She didn’t have my number.’

‘Perhaps she trusted me?’

‘Don’t say anything, Jenny. Really, I shouldn’t.’

He climbed into the car and drove Karen away.

No kindness ever goes unpunished
. It was a phrase Jenny’s father had been fond of repeating throughout her childhood, and it rang around her head as she drove back across town to the office. She wanted her thoughts to be with Natasha, to allow herself to grieve, but since her encounter with Karen she had felt a rising sense of panic at the thought that she might have done something wrong; something that would have consequences. She had given twelve years of her life to the team, and in order to help kids like Natasha, she had sacrificed the chance to be a far better mother to Ross, but she had a feeling all of that might count for little. Pete Murray had already begun organizing his defence against the possible accusation that he hadn’t done enough to find Natasha in time. He was going to raise a suspicion against Jenny: she knew Natasha was missing, they were evidently close, yet she had switched off her phone. Wasn’t that odd?

Elaine was waiting for her. ‘Could we have a moment, Jenny? We’ll go to the meeting room.’

Jenny followed her between the cluttered workstations. Heads turned and looked at her as she passed. Jenny avoided their gazes, but sensed their accusation. She had committed the cardinal sin: she had got too close.

Elaine sat behind the glass conference table and gestured Jenny to a seat opposite. She already had Natasha’s files spread out and had been making notes.

‘How was it?’ Elaine inquired. ‘Not too shaken up, I hope?’

‘I don’t think I’ll know for a while.’

Elaine made an attempt at a sympathetic smile. ‘I’m sorry to have to do this to you, Jenny, but there will be an inquest. The coroner will go through her history with a fine toothcomb.’

Jenny had scarcely given a thought to the coroner. Of course. He would trawl Natasha’s files for evidence of mishandling. She would have to make a sworn statement and give evidence in court. She had never been inside a witness box.

‘That’s presuming the police don’t take an interest first,’ Elaine continued.

‘The police? Why would they be involved? She went under a train – there’ll be video from the platform.’

‘I’m sure, but they’ll still want to look into the background.’

‘It’s all in the files. There are no secrets.’

Elaine pulled on a pair of reading glasses. ‘I see this last care order was made following the discovery that she was sexually active.’

‘That’s right. She had a pregnancy scare. She confessed it to Judy on a home visit.’

‘Why would she do that?’

‘Isn’t Judy meant to inspire that sort of confidence?’

‘Who was the potential father?’

‘Some boy at school. I don’t think she ever specified.’

‘We’re sure it wasn’t someone older? One of the mother’s partners, perhaps? It looks as if she’s had a lot of them.’

‘I was never told that, but it’s always a fear, of course. Especially with the kind of men Karen brings home.’

‘A vulnerable, sexually active fourteen-year-old girl with a history of running away from foster placements. And you didn’t consider her a suitable candidate for a secure home?’

‘I considered her a candidate for a stable and loving family. That’s what we found her.’

Elaine turned over more pages in the file and extracted a report on the foster parents. It was the standard profile document the team maintained on all the carers on their books. ‘Frank Bartlett, forty-eight, married twenty-five years, works as a garage mechanic. He and his wife seem to have fostered a disproportionate number of teenage girls.’

‘His wife’s a nurse. She’s good with them.’